Though it's been months since its debut, the book continually spikes on Amazon's Movers and Shakers list — its roundup of the top-selling products across the site — and it's currently listed as the No. 1 bestseller in the Diet Books category. Naturally, this begs the question: What's all the hype about? Aside from the famous author — and the fact that the title suggests fixing a problem just about every human struggles with (just look at search traffic for "flat belly" and "flat stomach" exercises). Is it all just marketing hype?
A study by Eat This, Not That! magazine advisor Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab, found that you can estimate how much someone weighs by taking a photo of their kitchen counter. After analyzing photos of 200 kitchens, he found that women who have soda sitting on their countertops weigh an average 26 pounds more while those who have cookies weigh about eight pounds more. The biggest surprise: Keeping cereal on your counter leads to an additional 20 pounds of body weight. The lesson here is to clean empty calories off your countertops to start losing weight.

While no crunch in and of itself will get rid of belly fat, abdominal exercises are the “finishing moves” to sculpt the abs once you’ve removed excess fat via diet and exercise, Holland says. Spend the majority of your workout focusing on the rest of your body, and dedicate no more than 10 percent of your time on abs work. So if you work out for an hour, plan six minutes of abs exercises and give the rest of your time to strength training and/or cardio.

"I recommend the DCBA approach: Diet first, Cardio second, Building muscle third, and Abs exercises last. Follow it and you can safely lose one to two pounds a week. Spend 60 minutes a day preparing healthier meals. Spend 20 minutes a day three to five times weekly doing cardio. Spend 15 minutes a day three times a week strength training. Finally, spend 5 minutes a day three times a week doing abs exercises."

Excited, but I hope you made a little more room on the calendar at the end! I really have to stick to the hour otherwise I get to bed SUPER later after work! The commuter life haha. :) I LOVE the progress I’ve made though. After a year and a half of blogilates I’m truly amazed at how far I’ve come; plus, I finally understand that other people always see the end results (how I am looking now gets lots of attention) but they don’t see the time it took OR the changes in my attitude and life which are twice as rewarding. I feel so capable and able to set my mind to any challenge. :)

Lie on the floor, face down, and support your upper body on your elbows, forearms, and hands. Slowly lift the rest of your body off the floor until you're on your toes. Keeping your body straight, hold for as long as is comfortable, then slowly lower and relax. Repeat as many times as possible until fatigued. For an added challenge, raise one leg at a time, as shown.

Want to get a flat tummy fast? This plan from best-selling author Liz Vaccariello may help you beat belly bulge in less than a month. The secret? Your body’s weight-loss weapon: stomach bacteria. Scientists have identified a relationship between imbalanced digestive bacteria and weight gain. This 21-day plan will help you optimize your gut and get slim at the same time!

Removing saturated fat (the kind found most often in animal products like meat) and replacing it with monounsaturated fat in moderation is undoubtedly a good thing. It helps lower LDL “bad” cholesterol and the chance of heart attack and stroke. So it’s a good approach for anyone with diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or heart disease.

Ask a woman struggling to lose weight, where does she want the weight to come off first, and I can promise you that she is more than like to say the tummy! This is especially true if you are talking to a woman who has had a baby. For most of us, a flat tummy makes us look slimmer, more proportionate, taller and ultimately more attractive. And the clothes fit better too!
While scents of apple pie and snickerdoodle cookies will make your mouth water, others can actually help suppress your appetite. One study in the Journal of Neurological and Orthopaedic Medicine found that people who sniffed peppermint every two hours lost an average of five pounds a month! Banana, green apple, and vanilla had similar effects. Consider burning a minty candle until you head to bed to fill the room with slimming smells. If you don’t want to bother with blowing out candles before you turn down the covers, try adding a few drops of peppermint oil to your pillow.
Lie faceup on floor with arms by sides. Curl head and shoulders off floor, then raise arms overhead (biceps by ears) and legs up at a 45-degree angle to start. Keeping upper body lifted throughout, bring knees toward chest and circle arms around, touching palms to outside of knees. Extend legs and raise arms overhead to start position to complete 1 rep. Do 2 sets of 10 to 12 reps.
Remember that second piece of salmon? That’ll be your protein for lunch! To complement the spicy paprika on the salmon, we’ve chosen to do a take on a fajita salad. Our favorite part is the simple cilantro-lime salad dressing. Making your own dressing at home can save you 12 grams of added sugar. Don’t believe us? Check out these surprising foods with added sugar.
When doing an abs circuit, think about all three planes of motion, says celebrity trainer Gunnar Peterson, who works with Sofia Vergara, Kim Kardashian, and Vanessa Lachey: Try crunches and reverse crunches to hit your sagittal (front to back and up and down) plane, standing side bends for frontal (side-to-side) movement, and chops or twists for transverse (rotational) action. This will help challenge and therefore define your abs.

I am new to your website and YouTube channel but to be honest I love it and I want to keep up. It has been 2 years since I have an eating disorder, I am afraid of eating and most of all getting fat. Few days ago I realized that it wouldn’t take me anywhere so I started watching some YouTube videos on how to keep fit, some ab workouts, legs workouts and healthy meals. I really like your 30 day abs challenge but I have a simple question. Should I stick with one and only ab challenge or can I do more than one at the same time? I am really looking forward to your answer. I think you are amazing and a really inspiring person that I would like to follow through my process. Thank you, Matilde

Simply blasting the air conditioner or turning down the heat in the winter may help attack belly fat while we sleep, according to a study in the journal Diabetes. As it turns out, colder temps can subtly enhance the effectiveness of your brown fat stores, which keep you warm by helping your burn through belly fat. Participants spent a few weeks sleeping in bedrooms with varying temperatures: a neutral 75 degrees, a cool 66 degrees, and a balmy 81 degrees. After four weeks of sleeping at 66 degrees, the participants had almost doubled their volumes of brown fat.

Dr. Travis Stork is an Emmy(R)-nominated co-host of the award-winning talk show "The Doctors" and a practicing board-certified emergency medicine physician. He graduated magna cum laude from Duke University and earned his M.D. with honors from the University of Virginia, where he was elected into the prestigious honor society of Alpha Omega Alpha for outstanding academic achievement. Born and rais ...more